Poor, pitiful baby!

(I moved this over from our willphyl.com site. Our blog actually started in June 2005.)

Jaan has his first cold. =(

Oh, first, I have to clarify: Jaan has slept through the night ONCE. That time in Kovrov was not the start of a new habit; he was just exhausted. It was his first time, as I said, but it was also his last time so far. =) I really wouldn't have expected (or even wanted) him to be sleeping through the night so soon, so being back on our schedule of waking up several times during the night is fine with me.

After our trip Jaan and I both came down with colds. I kind of expected it, because our friends' two-year-daughter started sniffling and sneezing soon after we got out to Kovrov to visit them. Jaan has been so pitiful! It's really hard to watch him coughing and feeling miserable. We've been praying constantly, though, and he seems to be slowly getting back to normal.

I'll have photos of our Kovrov trip up soon.

Two months already?

(I moved this over from our willphyl.com site. Our blog actually started in June 2005.)

Where did those two months go?

Actually, we've treasured and enjoyed every moment so far. We're so thankful for our little Jaan!

We weighed him yesterday for the first time since his birth, and he's not so little anymore. =) Our friend Tanya had two scales, so we put Jaan in a grocery bag and hung him up to weigh him and try to figure out which scale was more accurate. He just stared wide eyed over the top of his bag, while the whole process was caught on video. 4.8 kilograms! That's about ten and a half pounds. He has gained almost a kilogram a month.

We just got back from our first big trip with Jaan. He did really well with two overnight train rides, a weekend with friends in Kovrov, and being held by lots of new people. He actually slept through the night for the first time on Saturday. I think he'll miss all the busyness now that we're home.

Almost eight weeks!

(I moved this over from our willphyl.com site. Our blog actually started in June 2005.)

Jaan is getting close to eight weeks old.

He's growing and changing and leaving the newborn stage behind. He had a wonderful time getting to know his grandmother, and now he's looking forward to meeting his other grandparents and Aunt Abby at the end of this month. On Wednesday we took him to the American embasy to register and apply for his passport, so he's officially American now. Jaan is holding his head up and smiling much more these days. I think I finally caught one of those great smiles in a photo; we'll see when we get our film developed. Jaan is such a joy! We thank God for him constantly.


November 13: We got it! The toothless grin, that is. The picture turned out great. Here:

Photo taken November 2, 2003.

Jaan's official and four weeks old!

(I moved this over from our willphyl.com site. Our blog actually started in June 2005.)

We registered Jaan!

Thank you so much for praying. Yesterday, on Will's fourth trip to the registration office, we finally got Jaan's birth certificate. It was really obvious that people were praying. We barely had to wait at all. (Often there's a long line and several hour's wait.) We had all the right documents and everything went smoothly. Also, after my last update, Will had gone to try to get everything translated and notarized. The price that they quoted him was incredibly high, and they would have kept our documents for a week. We prayed, others prayed, and the next day Will found a notary office that did everything in one day and charged less than half of what the first office would have charged.

Now, the next step is registering at the American embassy and getting Jaan a passport. That shouldn't be so complicated. We'll see....

(Photo: Four weeks old and not very happy.)

Three weeks old and registration

(I moved this over from our willphyl.com site. Our blog actually started in June 2005.)

Jaan turned three weeks old yesterday!

He's getting bigger and more alert every day. His first doctor visit was Friday. The pediatrician came to us, which was really nice. We have a healthy little boy! Sunday he went to church for the first time. We actually ended up spending most of the day away from home, and he did fine. Everyone loved seeing him. I think we wore him out, because he slept even better than usual that night, too.

Right now we're trying to register Jaan and get him a birth certificate. That's complicated by two things: one, Jaan was born at home, and, two, we're foreigners. (There's also a third complication, bureaucracy!) Will has made two trips to the registration office, and right now he's at a notary. The first time Will went to register, it was late in the day, and they weren't accepting anyone, even though the office was still officially open. Today he got in, but they wanted notarized translations of our marriage license and passports. Will's trying to get those now. Then, he'll have to try again, and they told him it would be best if he brought a witness, like our midwife. We'll see what happens next! Please pray that we can do this without any further problems.

Jaan's name and a 2-week update

(This is a test at moving old updates over from our willphyl.com site. Our blog actually started in June 2005.)

We've had lots of questions about Jaan's name, so I decided to write a little about it.
We had a very hard time trying to decide what to name our baby. In fact, I pretty much gave up on ever finding anything. It had to be something our American friends and relatives could easily pronounce, and also, we wanted something that wouldn't be hard for everyone here. Early on we had discussed a certain name that we both liked: .

The only problem was how to spell this name in English. I said that we could just go with Yan, the simplest way to write it, but Will didn't like the way that looked. (By the way, for those who are still curious, the J in Jaan is pronounced like a Y.) After we discussed it and didn't come up with a good spelling, we threw out the name...or so I thought.

Then, on August 19 we were traveling back from our wonderful trip to Estonia. Will was furiously writing all over the backs of our train tickets. I asked what he was doing, and he said he was figuring out how to spell our son's name. Finally, he called the conductor, who was Estonian, and asked her how it would be spelled in Estonian. She looked at us strangely and scrawled "JAAN." Will asked if I had any objections to that, and since I didn't, our decision was made.

Jaan is actually a pretty uncommon name here. We have one friend named Jaan, and I've heard of another. It's actually a more Eastern European variation of John. We ended up with a name just uncommon enough that Jaan won't have a bunch of friends with his name, but something that everyone knows.


And now an update:
Jaan...
He's already two weeks old! I think he's grown and filled out a lot, but other people don't notice that as much as I do. He still doesn't do much but eat, sleep and be sweet, with a few fussy times mixed in. Jaan loves bath times; he gets to "swim" in the big tub (with one of us holding on to him, of course). We've noticed that in the past few days Jaan has started meeting our eyes more. He's more alert in general, and can "entertain" himself a little. He lies on the bed and makes quiet noises, instead of starting to cry as soon as he realizes he's alone. We took him to a prayer meeting today, which was his first time out with other people, and he behaved wonderfully; he slept! =)

Papa...
Will is helping out this week with a short term missions group from the States. He's spending all day, every day translating. Even though he's enjoying that, he misses being home with his little guy.

Mama...
I'm feeling great and getting stronger every day. There are still some little health problems that I'm dealing with, but I'm very thankful that they're not causing me any pain or discomfort.